Pressure Mounts for Federal Charges in Martin Case

Pressure mounted on the Justice Department Sunday to pursue federal criminal charges in the shooting death of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin, in the aftermath of the acquittal Saturday of his killer, George Zimmerman.

NAACP President Ben Jealous called on the Justice Department to take up the killing of Mr. Martin, a 17-year-old who was unarmed and black.

Mr. Jealous said Justice Department officials should bring charges under a 2009 hate crimes law, known in shorthand as the Shepard Act, that makes it a federal crime to willfully cause bodily injury, or attempting to do so with a firearm, when the act was committed because of race, religion or sexual orientation. “There is reason to be concerned that race was a factor in why he targeted young Trayvon,” he told CNN’s State of the Union, referring to Mr. Zimmerman.

An ongoing federal probe has been looking at whether Mr. Zimmerman could be prosecuted under the Shepard Act, which was passed in the wake of the brutal, high-profile killings of Matthew Shepard, who was a gay college student, and James Byrd Jr., a 49-year-old black man.

The FBI and Justice Department civil rights prosecutors last year opened an investigation into the shooting of Mr. Martin. That probe continues, and it will include a detailed review of all the evidence presented in the state case, according to officials.

It may prove more difficult to charge Mr. Zimmerman federally than it was to try him in state court, as the legal threshold for bringing a federal charge is much higher. Under the U.S. hate crimes statute, prosecutors must show a specific discriminatory intent in his actions. Simply demonstrating negligence or recklessness would not be sufficient.

Alan Vinegrad, a lawyer at Covington and Burling LLP, who as a Justice Department lawyer in the 1990′s prosecuted high-profile civil rights cases in New York, said a federal prosecutor would have to meet several legal conditions in order to bring a case under civil rights laws that predate the Shepard Act. For instance, such a prosecution would have to show that Mr. Zimmerman targeted the teen because of his race and because he was using a public facility, in this case a public street.

“There are significant challenges that a federal prosecutor would have in bringing a civil rights case,” said Mr. Vinegrad.

Mr. Jealous, who said his group had spoken with senior Justice officials about the matter, cited comments from young black boys in Mr. Martin’s neighborhood who said they had felt singled out by Mr. Zimmerman, a 29-year-old former neighborhood-watch volunteer who is Hispanic.

“It feels so often that our young people have to fear the bad guys and the good guys,” he said.

Mr. Jealous was one of many civil rights and elected officials who spoke about the case Sunday on the morning talk shows. Rep. Raul Grijalva (D., Ariz.) said he supported a Justice Department investigation into the case. He stopped short of saying that Mr. Zimmerman should be charged at this point but said the investigation should “to lead to a consequence of charges, if necessary.”

“I think our justice system is color blind,” he told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “That jury made the right decision from their standpoint.”

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, also defended the verdict.

“It seemed to me it was an accurate verdict,” he told the ABC program “This Week,” adding that there were a lot of “reasonable doubts” about Mr. Zimmerman’s guilt.

The case shouldn’t have been prosecuted in the first place, said Rep. Steve King (R., Iowa). “The evidence didn’t support prosecution, and the Justice Department engaged in this. . . . I regret that this all happened. I’m sorry that it was turned into a race issue,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Mr. Martin’s family is still “in disbelief” about the verdict but is going to look at the option of filing a civil suit, family lawyer Benjamin Crump told ABC. “They deeply want a sense of justice,” he said.

While the judge continually tried to bar race from the arguments and deliberations, Mr. Crump said the trial was infused with it. “We would be intellectually dishonest,” he said, “if we don’t acknowledge the racial undertones in this case.”

Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, who resigned amid a prostitution scandal and is now running for New York City comptroller, appeared on ABC and called the verdict “a failure of justice.” Still, he said, the federal government would have a difficult time bringing another criminal case against Mr. Zimmerman because of prohibitions against trying a defendant twice on similar charges.

Some senior Democrats said the justice system worked as designed.

“I don’t always agree with what the jury does, but that’s the system and I support the system,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) said on “Meet the Press.” He said he would “accept the verdict.’’

Rep. Chaka Fattah, (D., Pa.) a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, told CNN’s “State of the Union” that the verdict sends a signal that Mr. Zimmerman’s could commit the same act again and be found not guilty.

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